1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an electro-optical module and an electronic device, and more particularly, to a construction for improving impact resistance of an electro-optical module.
2. Related Art
In general, electro-optical modules such as a liquid crystal display unit, an organic luminescence display unit, and a plasma display unit are widely used as a display module. These modules typically have a glass panel, a plastic panel, or the like. When these modules are externally impacted, the glass panel may be cracked, or the plastic panel may be deformed, and finally the display unit may be broken down.
In a chassis frame of an electronic device having such an electro-optic module, a gap is provided between a window fixed at the chassis frame and a viewer-side surface of a liquid crystal panel in order to prevent the external impact applied to the window from being directly transmitted to the liquid crystal panel.
Nevertheless, when portable electronic devices such as a mobile phone or a personal digital assistant (PDA) having a miniaturized display unit are used in a practical case, the display unit may be frequently impacted by something or dropped to the ground, so that the its display unit may be completely unrecoverably damaged in some cases.
In order to prevent the damage in the display unit, JP-A-11-174417 and JP-A-2000-284270 disclose a construction for retaining the liquid crystal display panel by inserting transparent elastic resin for the transparent member, a construction for providing an extension around a polarization film to be extended outwardly with respect to the liquid crystal panel and supporting the extension by supports of the chassis frame, or the like.
However, in the aforementioned support structures of the liquid crystal display panel, the liquid crystal panel is supported by the transparent material disposed at its viewer side. Therefore, it may be impossible to obtain a strength for supporting the liquid crystal panel if the transparent material does not have an appropriate degree of stiffness. As a result, it is impossible to obtain sufficient impact absorption, and impact resistance is also limitedly improved.
In the above support structures, the transparent material should have a sufficient thickness in order to obtain impact absorption. In addition, there should be a space behind the liquid crystal panel in order to support the liquid crystal panel by using only the polarization film. Therefore, the thickness of an electronic device having the liquid crystal panel cannot be sufficiently reduced.